


you take the worst parts of me and make them bloom

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Pining, Secret Relationship, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Hatred, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, so much pining! they're all pining!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 02:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12401262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: Connor looks at him like he’s the crazy one - like Jared’s the one who called Connor up begging; like Jared’s the one who kisses like it’s goodbye every time; like Jared’s the one who started any of this - between them two, and Jared can already feel his annoyance growing.





	you take the worst parts of me and make them bloom

**Author's Note:**

> I have had this idea in my mind, and in the spur of the moment last night i wrote one scene. One scene turned into 6 pages. I have four other fics in the process and two of them have deadlines, SO. HOPE YOU ENJOY SOME BAD/UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP ANGST.
> 
> I own nothing, please enjoy.
> 
> Now with an amazing translation by the wonderful @larazireael: https://ficbook.net/readfic/7354268

“This isn’t healthy,” Jared starts.

He says it after he’s crawled out of Connor Murphy’s bed for the third time this month, and finally found his clothes and put them back on, preparing himself for another walk of shame he knows he shouldn’t be taking in the first place.

Connor finishes taking a drag from his cigarette, and then blows the smoke in Jared’s direction with a laugh.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he snickers, and something in Jared’s chest shifts at the way Connor moves because jesus christ, Connor had better not have been high when he’d pulled him into bed.

“Are you fucking high right now?” Jared demands, because he has to know. He reminds himself to lock his facial expression in place and unclench his fists because Connor Murphy is excellent at exploiting any sign of weakness, and he damn well isn’t about to show any.

Connor looks at him like he’s the crazy one - like Jared’s the one who called Connor up begging; like Jared’s the one who kisses like it’s goodbye every time; like Jared’s the one who started any of this - between them two, and Jared can already feel his annoyance growing.

“Well?” Jared asks again, and Connor tilts his head to the left, and this time he’s wearing a smirk.

But it’s not the smirk Jared used to. Not the one he wears when he thinks he’s won a fight, or is feeling too smug about something.

This smirk is tired eyes, emphasizing frown lines, and covered by nearly cloud like layer of smoke Connor has blown into the room.

His sheets stink of it. Jared knows. He’s been in them enough to know.

Time around them seems to slow. Jared wonders if maybe he’s inhaled too much smoke.

“Fuck, Kleinman,” Connor mutters, all sad eyes and a mean mouth and no way to hide his cruelty streak, “if I’d known you were this insecure I wouldn’t have gone along.”

And with that, whatever moment was forming between them is erased within the pages of ancient history as something hot and burning inside of Jared ignites.

“I wasn’t the one who started this!” He snarls, and takes a moment to be thankful no one else is home.

Jared nearly wants to engrave the message on his skin because it's important Connor knows it for some reason. Important that Jared isn’t the one that started the fire that’s going to engulf the world; that Jared isn’t the one making them, and keeping them, miserable.

He realizes, in a moment of striking clarity amongst the smoke, that he’s only about five feet away from Connor’s door. He could leave. Leave all this behind. He could forget the fighting, the hate sex, this weird thing between them that’s not quite passion but not quite strictly lust. He could forget Connor.

He could walk right out that door and never come back and this would all be over. Because he knows Connor wouldn’t stop him. Wouldn’t run after him, wouldn’t chase him down and find him and actually care.

He knows he could leave, should leave, but he won’t.

And that’s how this started. The horrible messy mean thing between them. It started with taunting insults and mean quips and knowing neither of them will ever be good enough for themselves, much less each other _so what’s the fucking point anyway?_

Knowing neither of them will ever be good enough for the one good thing they have in common and how they refuse to fuck him up like them.

Jared will say something too mean, too close to the line Connor’s drawn that no one can see, or Connor will do something that has Jared’s blood boiling over nothing- give a smirk, a too vague shrug, a mocking laugh.

It all means nothing, but somehow, it’s everything.

Between angry shouts and barely tolerable lunch sessions and something always boiling: something erupts.

Lips fall on lips and bodies fall onto whatever flats surface they are closest to because it’s something when they both have nothing and neither even want a chance at possible gaining what they do want.

That’s their first rule in all of this: they don’t fuck him up. They don’t involve Evan into the mess they’ve made of themselves. They spit their own poisons onto themselves and each other, and never him and that’s how it begins.

(The first time, Jared remembers how he learned that Connor kisses like he’s desperate. Like he lets his kisses convey everything he won’t allow himself to stay. He lets his lips beg where his words refuse to.

Connor kisses like he’s running out of breath every second of his life, and he’s trying to make what he has right now count: whether it be with too sharp teeth scaling down Jared’s body, biting wherever he can reach and laughing when Jared arches, or lips that move like they’re forming _goodbye_ every time.)

And Jared can’t leave this, because he doesn’t know how.

Connor’s eyes spark and Jared can see he’s getting angry - that’s it’s starting all over again, like it always done, like it always will. He sees how they give each other the worst parts of themselves and he almost wants to laugh at just how fucked up it all is and how they even got here in the first place - but Jared’s already too far gone: lost in his own rage, because for some reason it matters that Connor knows he didn’t start this.

Surprisingly, the spark doesn’t last and Connor deflates. Where his shoulders had tensed, they loosen and he falls back against the wall like a puppet with its strings cut.

“You’re so full of shit,” Connor murmurs, but he isn’t facing Jared when he says it. He’s glancing out the window of his bedroom at something Jared can’t see, and takes another drag of his cigarette.

Jared wonders if there’s even anything there.

A sudden dinging noise has them both jumping and the newfound atmosphere of the room shatters into millions of tiny cutting pieces.

Connor watches as Jared pulls his phone out from his pocket and frowns.

“It’s Evan,” Jared starts, already typing back a reply, and the temperature of the room seems to drop at the mention of his name, and Jared can see Connor curling up further into himself at the mention in the corner of his eye.

“What does he want?” Connor asks, and Jared know better than to raise an eyebrow in a question they both already know the answer to.

Jared shrugs, “Homework and college essay editing, I think.”

Jared sends the message and pockets the phone, “I’ll tell him you said hi.”

Connor rolls his eyes, and falls back further into the wall where Jared guesses his bedpost used to be: “Yeah you do that.”

Jared’s phone dings again, but neither of them move.

Jared lets a deprecating smile slip onto his lips, and turns his eyes to the ground absentmindedly running his foot over the old carpet of Connor’s bedroom.

When he looks up he makes sure to meet Connor’s eyes.

“I meant what I said earlier. This isn’t healthy.”

Connor meets his gaze head on, but it’s still too empty, and scoffs. “Yeah, and I meant what I said: I know.”

Jared opens his mouth, and shuts it.

He sighs and reaches for the doorknob to Connor’s bed room door.

“See you at school,” Jared says as he twists it, and doesn’t hear Connor’s response - or of he even responds - as he walks out and begins to head down the steps.

Three steps out the door of Connor Murphy’s house his phone goes off again, and he pulls it out to check.

Maybe he should be surprised who it’s from, but he’s not.

From Evan:

_you ok?_

Jared is three blocks away from Connor Murphy’s house and he’s been staring at the text Evan Hansen has sent him for about twelve minutes before he actually sees it.

Jared is three blocks and four steps away from Connor Murphy’s house, and he wants to laugh as much as he wants to cry.

He types his response.

From Jared:

_psh. As if I could be anything else._

He goes home and he spends twenty minutes staring at the floor in the shower until one of his siblings bangs on the door and demands he hurry up. He turns off the water, dries, and redresses for the second time today, slipping past his squawking sibling as he heads to his room.

He spends nearly ten minutes staring in his mirror at the marks Connor’s left up and around his throat.

He lets his fingers trace them faintly, hissing when he presses too hard. They had agreed no marks, but then again, when do either of them actually listen? Besides he was expecting it. He knows Connor’s all teeth and callous words and lanky movement, and staring in the mirror at the marks makes something settle in Jared’s mind.

Because the marks are proof. Proof that what keeps happening is actually happening, and that this twisted thing between them is something real.

Eventually, he tears his gaze from the mirror and sits on his bed. Tries not to think about how Connor has pushed him down onto it the last time he was here, kissed him until neither of them could breathe, and fucked him until he had nearly cried.

He tries not to think about how lying in the afterglow, it almost felt like _something_ besides rough hands and sharp teeth and words aimed to strike and hurt between them.

He clenches his eyes shut and shakes his head, hoping to dislodge the memory.

He takes a breath, opens his eyes and then opens his phone and clicks on Connor’s name.

From Jared:

 _This needs to stop_.

Erase.

From Jared:

_Hey um, this needs to fucking stop and we need to probably talk some shit out and stop pushing down our problems down until their bubble over into some really really good hate sex._

Erase.

From Jared:

_I think, maybe this could be something._

He can’t hit the backspace button quick enough.

From Jared:

_We can’t keep doing this._

He sends it before he’s absolutely sure of it, but he just can’t bear it any longer.

(He can’t keep picturing the sparks of anger that erupted in Connor’s eyes; can’t keep remembering how they hold each other like if they let go they will actually be losing something; can’t keep thinking about how sometimes, Jared thinks maybe he can see a little more than just disdain in Connor Murphy’s eyes.)

The response comes seven minutes later and Jared opens it without a thought. He’s on autopilot, and he can’t remember when he last wasn’t.

From Connor:

_I know. But who’s going to stop it?_

And, Jared blinks. Because, really, that’s the question, isn’t it? The one they always end at.

Because he doesn’t want to admit the source and neither does Connor and it’s too hard to place fault.

He doesn’t bother responding because it’s pointless; it won’t make a difference anyway.

He goes to bed early, ignoring the chaotic noises of his siblings from downstairs, and tries his best to fall asleep while light still shines through his blinds.

When he wakes, it’s five in the morning but he’s not tired. So he gets up and makes his siblings lunches, and only acknowledging their _thank yous_ with a subdued nod as he drops them off at school.

When he parks in the school parking lot, he takes a moment to muster up the widest grin he can before he gets out of his car.

It doesn’t take him long to find them, but when he does the world feels like it’s opened up.

Evan sees him first.

He smiles and waves and Jared’s heart flutters in a way he’s learned only Evan can make happen.

“Hi-i, Jared!” Evan says, and Jared grins at him, ruffling his hair and cherishing Evan’s blush before sitting next to him and finally making eye contact with a scowling Connor. Something in his stomach curls.

“What the hell happened to you?” Jared asks, like he didn’t just see him less than twelve hours ago, because according to Evan he didn’t.

Connor looks away and grunts. Jared rolls his eyes and scoffs.

“Come-e on, guys,” Evan starts, already fidgeting with the end of his shirt, “let’s just get along.”

And, because Evan commands it, Jared thinks, so it is.

Jared watches as Connor looks at Evan, catalogs how he stares at Jared like he’s not really seeing him; how he looks at nearly everything like that: how it hurts to be looked at like that.

Jared watches Connor smile at one of Evan’s stories, and thinks Connor might be too good at keeping up the charade.

He thinks they both might be.

But he puts the thoughts aside, _just one second_ he begs his mind, and submerged himself in Evan’s latest tale.

He ignores the painful thumping in his chest, ignores the way brown curls fall on pale features and how blue eyes seem to light up the world, and for once Jared just listens.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comment and Kudos are much appreciated (I live off of them, please) and I am rhymesofblue on tumblr if you wanna see all the angsty fanart I reblog or some of the fics I have in the works!


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